


not falling together

by likecharity



Category: British Comedian RPF, Fashion Model RPF, Placebo, The Dead Weather, The Kills
Genre: Angst, Breathplay, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Infidelity, M/M, Rough Sex, Smoking, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:59:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likecharity/pseuds/likecharity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It used to be just the two of them in this tiny room, and now they're letting others in. It feels like they're coming apart at the seams, and Alison doesn't know how to fix it.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This basically deals with speculated changes/struggles in Alison and Jamie's relationship brought about by Kate and The Dead Weather. The timeline spans from September 2009 to December 2011, so not surprisingly, it is LONG. Thank you to the people who encouraged me—you know who you are. ♥

Jamie shows up the day after Alison gets back, lets himself in with the key he still has and scares her half to death when she wakes up to his grinning face. Jetlagged and bewildered, she hits him, knocking the cup of coffee he's made her out of his hand. The hot liquid spills over her bed, burning her, and she shrieks and hits him and then lies there shaking slightly as he whips off the sheets.

"Missed you too," he grumbles as he carefully picks up the shattered shards of a mug he gave her six years ago.

He wants to start writing, and she has to remind him that she got back from a three-month tour _just last night_ and isn't quite ready yet. He leaves in a bit of a huff and comes round the next day instead, knocks on the door this time in a way that seems to Alison slightly passive-aggressive. She is sympathetic, though—she has to remember that while she might have been writing and playing all summer, he's had to wait for her return in order to do either properly.

So they sit on the floor in the middle of the living room, and pool everything they've created in each other's absence. Notebooks and sketchbooks and tapes and scribbled-on scraps of paper form a sort of moat around them. Alison finds the sight of it overwhelming but Jamie seems giddy, picking things up at random and reading them intently, his legs tucked into his chest. 

It is clear from this moment that the next album is going to be a challenge. There is nothing wrong with what either of them has written, but putting any of it _together_ seems like an impossible task. Jamie's words are beautiful but they seem meaningless to her—she used to be able to understand all of it, even when he tried to be cryptic, but now none of it makes any sense. He seems to have the same problem finding a connection with her lyrics; they speak of things he hasn't experienced, of times she hasn't shared with him. 'Dead Weather rejects', he calls them once, offhand but hurtful, and Alison seethes because they're _not_ —anything she wrote that Jack shot down went straight into the trash; these are Kills songs through-and-through.

They meet up every few days and try, anyway, to make something from what they have. They attempt to write the way they used to, in separate rooms, but they may as well still be in separate countries for all the difference it makes. Alison suggests writing together, playing together, jamming like she does with the others—but that's never worked for the two of them and she knows it. It takes them weeks to be able to even form the beginnings of what might be a song, and then Alison has to leave, off on tour again, at the end of the month.

***

A week later she's soundchecking with The Dead Weather in Mexico and before they even realise what's happening, they've written a new song. Jack is feverishly scribbling down lyrics and making sure they got it all on tape and Alison is just blown away by how quick it was, how effortless, how the words just came out of her mouth and fit the music so perfectly and she didn't even think about it. It felt psychic, the four of them just picking up on each other's wavelength and playing what came naturally. It used to be like that with Jamie all the time and she can't believe she's been lucky enough to experience it again.

She's still high on it when they perform, and onstage she feels powerful, like she could do anything. She sets her eye on Jack and stands closer than she's supposed to, gazes at him and gets lost in the music and swears she can feel the heat coming off his body. By _Will There Be Enough Water_ , he's so tense that she thinks he might shove her away any second now, his shoulders set and hard and his eyes refusing to meet hers.

They've only been offstage for about five minutes when he grips her tightly by the arm and drags her into the men's room, locking the door behind them and then fucking her up against it, biting into her collarbone and clutching her hips hard enough to bruise. She has his sweaty hair in her face and he's so deep inside her it hurts, and it feels _so_ good. 

It always goes like this; teasing him 'til he gives in. It makes her feel like she's in control, but she knows she never truly is. For all the times Jack's caved in, there are twice as many occasions when she's been left hanging, stung by a cruel remark and left feeling pathetic, like a fool. But it's worth it for the times when she really gets to him, when he snaps at her and pushes her away. Because the second they're alone he'll shove her up against a wall or throw her down on the floor and fuck her 'til she can't breathe, and he'll do it like he fucking _hates_ her, and she loves it. She _loves_ it.

***

Jamie is different when she returns home again the following month. Before, he was frustrated, and would get surly and sulky when things weren't going his way. This didn't surprise Alison; he's often like that during the writing process, has thrown fits and broken equipment before, and it's the passion of it that tells her how much he cares. But now, he's almost serene, dropping by a few days after she gets back and suggesting they give it another go. It's much the same, and this time Alison is the one who's aggravated by it, the contrast between this and the easy, almost-accidental songwriting of The Dead Weather more obvious than it's ever been. She wishes he would just _get_ it, but he doesn't—he just furrows his brow at her and shakes his head a lot and crosses out the lines that she likes best.

The worst part is that he acts like this is all her fault, like it's some mistake she's made and they're just going to have to grit their teeth and try to fix it. Alison wants to point out that she's not the only one who's changed, that maybe he's the one to blame for moving out and leaving her, that maybe that's why she went off with the others in the first place. It's all petty and she bites her tongue, but she can't stand it, his attitude, the way he's acting like he has to clean up her mess.

Some days, he comes round even when they haven't planned to work. She thinks he's checking up on her, seeing how she's doing. And she hates that, it feels like pity. He moved out quite a while ago, but she's been so busy that she hasn't spent much time in the house alone and it does feel odd without him here. Even so, there's no reason for him to act like she can't _survive_ without him. She wants to scream at him sometimes, shout about how she's doing just fine, how she went on tour without him, onstage without him, stayed in hotels without him, did interviews without him, went halfway round the fucking _world_ without him and she can live on her own just fine, thank you, she doesn't need him checking in on her like a parent leaving a teenager home alone.

Still, it wouldn't be quite true. It hurts every time he leaves. The place is such a mess that their belongings have merged to a ridiculous degree over the years and the task of splitting them was an impossible one when it came time for Jamie to pack and leave for good, so Alison still has at least half of his clothes in her closet and trips over his trinkets in every room. They haven't even bothered trying to separate things like books and records—Jamie takes a handful of each whenever he comes and goes, not bothering to check what or whose they are. He takes things every time he leaves and the house always feels noticeably emptier, aches with his absence. It makes Alison itch for touring again, just to get away.

After a couple of weeks it begins to feel like they might be on their way towards something, with about three half-formed songs and plans for more. But there is still something missing from the way that they work—it takes so much effort and yet Jamie is more patient than ever. When Alison tries to voice it, makes a little comment about how hard it is, he just frowns at her in bemusement and says "That's why it's so rewarding, though, isn't it? The challenge is part of what makes it fun." He gives her a look that seems to say, _don't you remember?_ and honestly, she's not sure that she does. It used to be challenging _and_ fun, but now it just feels like an uphill struggle and he's not even there to support her.

Usually, with writing being this difficult, they would be fighting every day—bickering about word choice at the very least, if not actively attacking each other to vent their frustrations. But Jamie is as calm as she's ever seen him, and when she gets pissed off he just gives her some space. Once, he tries to hug her to comfort her and she thrashes violently, bewildered, and instead of grabbing hold of her arms and pinning her to the sofa until she calms down, he just _leaves_ , telling her to call him when she feels better.

It's so strange to be out of sync with him like this. She can't believe that he simply _doesn't_ feel what she feels, so she convinces herself he's keeping it bottled up inside of him, denying the fact that there's an issue at all. It makes her want to bring it out of him—at least if they yell and scream at each other it's out in the open and out of their systems, and maybe they can move past it and be able to work like they used to. But Jamie is like a locked door and no matter how hard she tries, he stays the same. She begins to think that maybe they're not on the same page at _all_ ; maybe she's the only one with a problem.

***

"Choke me." 

Noel's voice sounds quiet, gentle, as though he's speaking to a wild animal when he says, "What?"

Alison lifts her chin, takes his hands and puts them around her throat. "Choke me," she repeats. She tries to make it sound casual but her voice comes out sore and aching and desperate.

"I—don't know how." Noel's voice is still small and Alison hates it. He never sounds like this. She doesn't want to be the one to make him sound like this, all timid like she's crazy.

"Just—" Alison says—snaps—pushing his hands down against her throat, against the column of trachea, and the pressure is good but too expected and familiar with her orchestrating the movement. She squirms and little and lets go, and Noel's hands immediately slacken.

He's not good at this. It's not that he's a stranger to it—far from it, in fact—but he's always been on the receiving end, takes that place naturally, and doesn't know how to flip it. He's there for Alison to slap around when she needs, he doesn't mind (likes it, she thinks) when she gets rough with him, when she needs to take out all of her frustrations. But this time that's not what she wants. She needs something more, and Noel isn't the one to give it to her.

"Come on," she pleads. She hates the way he's looking at her, like he's judging her, when he's let her do this (and worse) to him. And she doesn't like having to beg for it; that's not her. 

"Alison..." Noel says, gentle, uncertain.

"Fine. Fuck you." 

It comes out suddenly and startles her, and he looks crestfallen and worried and all of a sudden she can't _stand_ it, shoves at him, pushing him off her as she sits up. She fumbles for her cigarettes, wishing he wouldn't just sit there and _stare_ at her like that, like a scolded child. He snatches the cigarette packet from her just as she's taken one out. She kind of slaps at his hand in response but she lets him take it; it's more like siblings squabbling than anything else, anything real that she could hold onto.

They sit there smoking in silence until their cigarettes have burned right down, and then Noel wordlessly takes Alison in his arms. They lie together on the bed and she lets him wrap himself around her, holding her tight. She thinks about how she doesn't need this, shouldn't need it, a man to hug her and make her feel better. She wouldn't tolerate it from anyone else right now, not even Jamie—perhaps _especially_ not Jamie—but it's okay, because it's Noel, and this is not something that comes naturally to him either. And he won't think her weak, or think of her any differently at all. So she just buries her face in his chest and closes her eyes.

It's the first time they really _sleep_ together.

In the morning she's embarrassed, waking up with him still tangled up around her, and she starts to squirm her way free. She's supposed to meet Jamie to try writing some more today, and she doesn't really want to show up late and in the same clothes she was wearing yesterday. Noel wakes up and grins sleepily, and she gives him a tight smile back. He props himself up on his arm, studying her, and then reaches out, puts his hands around her throat.

"Like this?" he asks, voice all scratchy from sleep.

She nods and smiles brightly. "Y-yeah."

He climbs on top of her, and he's hard as he shifts her legs apart with his knees. "Yeah?" he asks, tightening his grip.

"Yeah," she says breathlessly. His grasp on his neck isn't quite strong enough, but even so she feels light-headed and excited as he fucks her, his hips like a jackhammer as he holds her down by the throat, and she comes from it and ends up gasping for breath when he rolls off her.

"What was that for?" she asks dizzily as he reaches for her cigarettes from the bedside table.

"I dunno," he says with his lips around the filter, "you tell me."

It's a simple question that she probably should've asked herself sooner, but it catches her off guard. Jack, she thinks. Probably Jack. She hasn't seen him in a while and she doesn't know when she's going to see him again, and perhaps on tour she grew accustomed to being thrown around like a ragdoll. She misses it.

She doesn't say that, though. She looks at Noel sidelong and asks, "What do you think?" because sometimes, on very rare occasions, Noel will say something startlingly brilliant that puts her entire life into a perspective she could never have envisioned on her own, seemingly without even realising it.

This chilly December morning in Highgate, though, Noel just shrugs and guesses, "You had a baby duck-billed platypus stuck in your windpipe?"

Alison blinks at him, smile curling across her lips. "I don't think _choking_ me would've dislodged it."

"No," Noel says, considering this. "I probably killed it instead. You want Pop Tarts for breakfast?"

Alison bursts out laughing and plucks Noel's cigarette from between his fingers, takes a long drag and then coughs a lot before croaking out, "I really do."

***

"Don't throw yourself at me. It's pathetic." 

Alison blanches. " _Throw_ myself at you?" she sneers. She'd just leaned in a little bit, trying to get a look at the lyrics. Casual. Holding her drink in one hand and getting closer just so she could see better.

"Oh, it's just a coincidence that you wait 'til we're the only ones in the room and then you come over and invade my space?" Jack shifts her aside gently with his shoulder, strikes something else out on the crumpled paper in front of them. 

"Uh, yeah," Alison says. She takes another gulp of her whiskey. Jack says nothing more, which means the conversation is over, and another time Alison might respect that—but right now she's tipsy and frustrated and she can't stand letting him have the last word. "Kinda conceited, huh? Thinking I just wanna get _close_ to you."

Jack's jaw clenches. He flips pages in the notebook agitatedly, but she can tell he's not really focusing on the lyrics anymore, just pretending.

Alison, in a dangerous move, nudges him with her hips. "Oooh, _Jack_ ," she makes her voice higher-pitched, obnoxious, sarcastic. If she makes it all into a joke she can maintain her dignity when he shoots her down. "I just can't _control_ myself around you."

"Alison." _Oh_ , Alison loves it when he says her name like that. Like it's a warning. It always tells her she's on the right track.

She laughs and it comes out as a sort of drunken cackle. "I just want—" she loses the voice and tries to find it again, still half-giggling, "I just miss your _cock_ , it's been so _long_ —"

Jack snaps, whirling round and snatching her glass out of her hand. "I think you've had a little too much of this." He takes a sip and raises his eyebrows. "Thought you could handle it, but clearly not."

Alison makes to grab the glass back from him, but he holds it out of reach. She punches at his stomach half-heartedly and it's like rock under her fist. _Fuck._

"I'm not gonna _fight_ you, Alison," Jack says, and the anger's gone. Now he just looks amused. Like he's mocking her. That's the worst—when she can't rile him up properly and he just absentmindedly swats at her like she's an annoying little fly. She thinks of Jamie, treating her like a kid having a temper tantrum when he used to join right in until they both ended up with bruises.

"Suit yourself," she says, and coughs. "Can I have my drink back, please?"

"If you can keep your hands to yourself."

Alison says nothing, looking at him skeptically. She's quiet for so long that he relents, leaning in and saying in an undertone, the words crisp and clear, "We don't do this here. All right?"

The words make her heart sink. She wants to pout and say _why not?_ but she won't give him the satisfaction. She's trying to figure out what she _should_ say when the door opens and Dean comes back in.

"Hey," he says, slightly awkwardly, heading over to the keyboard. He's clearly able to sense the tension in the room, but he and LJ have grown used to it, have learned to turn a blind eye when necessary.

"Hey," says Alison brightly, reaching for her glass from Jack's hand while Dean's back is turned. Jack lets her have it and she quirks an eyebrow at him. All she gets in return is a tiny, sharp shake of his head.

She still thinks she could wear him down. It's months before they go on tour again and anticipation has lost all of its appeal; she just _wants_ , and wants _now_. She's all impatience and greed and it makes her feel vaguely disgusted with herself whenever she stops to think about it. 

Suddenly she thinks of Jamie back at home, probably still poring over the lyrics she left him and trying to make something of them. She thinks of the way he looked at her when Jack phoned to tell her to get her ass to Nashville, the way he'd studied her quietly and figured out the gist of the call from what he could hear. He made her tell him, asked "What was that about?" even though he knew, because he wanted her to admit that she was leaving again, to record an album with Jack before she'd even managed to _write_ one with Jamie.

And then he'd looked at her that way that made her heart ache, full of some broken sort of longing that he covered quickly by setting his jaw and nodding sharply at her. "All right," he'd said shortly, and then, "go," like she needed his blessing.

***

By some sort of magic, _Sea of Cowards_ is finished by mid-January, and Jack throws a party at his house to celebrate. Jamie and Kate even fly over, which Alison thinks should make her feel flattered, but instead it just makes her antsy and uncomfortable. It's starting to wear away at her nerves, this whole thing, as though she's leading a double life. Having everyone under one roof just seems like too _much_. 

She thinks of the first time they came to see The Dead Weather perform, and how _weird_ Jamie got afterwards, how he'd barely look at her. She thought, triumphantly, that she had managed to shatter his calm façade, but instead of blowing up at her he just stayed quiet, even when she tried to confront him. Kate, meanwhile, was like a gossipy schoolgirl, picking up on the tension with Jack and daring to mention it in front of Jamie. Alison had brushed her off, irritated. "It's part of the show," she'd said with a roll of her eyes, and ignored the doubtful look on Kate's face she got in return, looking at Jamie instead and finding that she couldn't even read his expression, possibly for the first time in her life.

Tonight, she sits on a sofa in Jack's living room, smoking listlessly and watching the celebrations go on around her. Kate has had too much to drink and has chosen to be overly friendly on a night when Alison most wishes to be left alone. She's been murmuring things in Alison's ear, but Alison has barely been listening, watching Jamie and Jack deep in discussion across the room and wishing she could hear what they were saying.

"Don't fuck around, Kate," Alison snaps suddenly when she feels Kate's glossy lips brush her ear again. Her voice is low, scratchy. She's been smoking too much tonight; she's starting to feel a little sick. "I'm not in the mood."

"Who's fucking around?" Kate asks, snuggling closer to her on the couch, resting her head on Alison's shoulder. She smells sweet, like some sort of fruity perfume. It's not her usual scent and it makes Alison feel sicker.

"You're drunk," Alison says tightly around her cigarette.

"'m not," Kate responds, nuzzling into Alison's fur coat, which suddenly feels far too hot around her. "Listen, it's perfect, yeah? You and me and Jamie. Happy little family."

For a long moment, Alison says nothing, wondering what she missed. Kate doesn't seem to be waiting for an answer, particularly, but eventually Alison says, "What do you mean?" anyway.

Kate laughs, and it's her genuine one, and Alison loves the silly, crazy sound of it. But then she says, "I don't know," a little hoarsely, "I don't know, I'm drunk. Sometimes I get drunk and then I want to fuck you. Sue me."

She sits up straight again, sort of huffing to herself like she's in a mood now, folding her arms. Alison can tell she's looking at her, out of the corner of her eye. She's not massively shocked, but maybe it's because she's not taking Kate seriously. She does this, has been doing it ever since the two of them met. Just little flirty things at first, getting more blatant when she'd had more to drink. Alison always assumed it was a way to get one up on her, because it made her blush and feel awkward and Kate needed a way to feel secure, to be sure that Alison was intimidated. 

When she's friendly, when she's reasonably sober, the two of them get on just fine, but Kate can switch over in an instant, and she has the ability to make Alison feel like a teenager again, painfully shy and awkward, wanting to dye her hair bright colours or shave it all off just so no one looks at her _face_ anymore.

Alison just says "Kate," in warning. She doesn't know what she's warning for. She knows what Kate's going to say before she says it.

"Fine. Jesus, you're boring." It's always that, that sudden rejection, always _you're so boring, you're so uptight, you're such a prude, Alison, why can't you take a joke? Why don't you let yourself have some fun for once? Loosen up, Alison, fuck. No wonder you haven't had a boyfriend in so long._

No fucking wonder.

"Have you fucked any of them yet?" Kate asks. Alison doesn't even dignify this with an answer, and Kate goes on, her voice low. "I've seen the way you look at him, Alison."

"His wife is standing about six feet away from you," Alison says flatly, lighting another cigarette.

Kate makes a sort of _pshh_ noise. "Divorced within two years. I'd bet on it."

Alison frowns at her. "You're grossing me out," she says, and feels safe in saying it, if only because she knows Kate won't remember in the morning.

Kate laughs. "All right. Whatever," she says, and gets up, swaying her way across the room and slipping her arm through Jamie's and kissing him on the cheek. Jamie, clearly mid-conversation, laughs a little awkwardly, and Jack looks Kate up and down, amused, before shooting a glance at Alison. Alison just slumps, throws her head against the back of the sofa, blows a smoke ring and watches it drift towards the ceiling. 

She and Jamie go into the studio next month, which is probably Kate's reason for marking her territory so obnoxiously—a little reminder to Alison before they disappear off together. She's saying: _Jamie's mine and you're mine too._ Telling them she's in control of both of them and they'd better not forget it when they're in cold, lonely Benton Harbor with their music and their bunk-beds and their romantic little bike rides around town.

Alison settles down into the sofa cushions, shuts her eyes and thinks wistfully of Michigan, of the magic that takes place there when they make their records. It'll get better, she tells herself. They just need something familiar, some time away, just the two of them and their music like it always used to be, and then everything will be okay.

***

Everything is not okay. 

The surroundings are familiar but nothing else is; it feels like returning to a childhood home as an adult. It feels _wrong_ , in some vague and unsettling way that she can't even pinpoint, let alone try to fix. And Jamie, it seems, is oblivious, getting lost in his drum machine patterns for days on end and leaving Alison to work on entire songs all by herself. Even in the music, there is something missing, some fundamental part of The Kills that won't come through.

They try to make up for it by making everything bigger, expanding the sound until it's almost absurd, until there are seven amps and a choir in the studio with them, and they're messing around with other instruments like they've never bothered to before. Alison realises, too late, that this is going in the wrong direction, that all they've succeeded in doing is making themselves sound _less_ like The Kills than ever. It used to be just the two of them in this tiny room, and now they're letting others in. It feels like they're coming apart at the seams, and Alison doesn't know how to fix it.

They don't really talk about it. Jamie is too focused, getting obsessive about all the little details the way he usually does, and Alison feels lost and distant, just doing what he tells her the majority of the time. The songs she writes just come out of her and she doesn't think about it, doesn't analyse anything she's written, but Jamie's words are suddenly an enigma, a code to crack. They used to be so beautiful and simple to her, like they came from a different part of her own brain.

He writes songs about Kate now—she figures it out even when he tries to disguise it—and she belts them out at the top of her lungs. She screams like Jack's pounding away on the drums behind her, yelling at her to turn it up a notch if she doesn't wanna get drowned out. Jamie gets pissy then, asks her what she's trying to prove. He likes it when she sounds gentle and vulnerable, when her voice has that cracking quality like she's close to tears.

Sometimes, spiteful, she makes her lyrics sound like Dead Weather songs on purpose, sings the way she does when she's got the band around her just to get on his nerves. But he doesn't ever fight with her, just snaps a bit and goes off on his own. It never comes to anything. She forces herself back into Kills mode but ends up with pages and pages of ballads instead, stuff she thinks is totally unusable until it turns out Jamie's written one too, and in a singular moment of clarity it sounds like a counterpart to one of her own.

That night, feeling closer to him than she has in a while, she whispers to him in the dark. "Jamie. Jamie," until he stirs, and then, "Jamie, why is it so hard?"

Silence, for so long that she thinks he must be asleep after all. And then, "It's always hard."

She feels her eyes beginning to sting with tears; she can't stand that he doesn't get it. "But—Jamie," she says weakly. The words burst out of her. "I'm struggling. I can't get comfortable and I don't feel right, I feel trapped and lost and crazy—"

"That's what makes it good," Jamie interrupts, and the bedsprings creak as he rolls over. She wishes she could see his face. "That's how we make music."

 _Is it?_ Alison wonders frantically, thinks back to _Midnight Boom_ and remembers—distantly, as if in a dream—the days of paranoia and claustrophobia and mad road trips and the week that they didn't open the curtains and only ate raw food and cut each other's hair and thought they were going to die if the sunlight touched their skin. She remembers the crazy road trip to Mexico, the drugs, that one night they got totally off their heads and ended up half-naked and clinging to one another on the bathroom floor, scared to let go.

All of that was different. They were one then, everything was shared.

"We're halfway there," Jamie whispers softly, trying to comfort her but she wishes he could just come over and get into bed with her instead, hold her 'til she falls asleep.

She says nothing, buries her face in her pillow. 

She leaves for New Zealand the very next day, for another month and a half of touring with The Dead Weather, and she's not sure she can even take it, this back-and-forth. She gets Jack to fuck her repeatedly, gives up her dignity and fucking begs for it. It reaches the point where it happens after almost every show, and they can no longer kid themselves that they're keeping it a secret. Every night Alison thinks it's going to bring her some salvation and she slinks around Jack like a cat, sings so close to him that she swears she feels their lips brush. Every night she thinks he ought to have resigned himself to it, but he still resists until absolute breaking point. It starts out _so fucking good_ but by the last leg of the tour she just feels guilty, and whenever Jack is on the phone to Karen she wants to puke, and the worst part is that even _this_ is easier than making music with Jamie these days.

She arrives back in Michigan in May and feels like she can't wash the stench of it all off her; she feels like Jamie can see it in her eyes. The first few days back she is skittish and restless, feeling like she has cabin fever after travelling to a different country every week, and Jamie largely leaves her alone to deal with it. When they're together, he regards her carefully like she's something feral, and for an entire week she bursts into tears every single morning at breakfast. 

It doesn't help that _Sea of Cowards_ gets its release that month, and when she's not in the studio she's taking call after call of interviews, having to talk about one record while working on another. The back-and-forth never stops.

It's made even worse by her certainty that Jamie absolutely doesn't get it, but then one afternoon, mid-song, she sinks down to her knees in front of the microphone and stays there, hands over her face—and Jamie stops playing and gets down on the floor with her, holds her close and whispers, simply, "Jack?"

Alison falls against him, sobs into his chest. Jamie's body is stiff against hers as he soothes her through it, neither of them saying a word.

***

They finish recording, and festivals with The Dead Weather come next. It never really stops, but there is a short break between Bonnaroo and Glastonbury when she and Jamie meet up with Brian Molko. It's been a long time since either of them have seen him, and so they invite him round for drinks at Red Meat Heart, to catch up. 

It's always a little odd when they see each other, especially when it's all three of them. Alison is always very aware of the fact that they have both fucked him. She did so a few times, in fact. For Jamie, it was just the once, but they did it within a few hours of each other at a party many years back. Alison stumbled into an upstairs room that she thought was the bathroom and found Jamie and Brian in a bed together, clearly high on something, dressed but significantly dishevelled. They had beckoned her and Jamie had scrunched up a handful of her hair and kissed her on the forehead. They both looked wild-eyed and the atmosphere in the room was charged with something, and Alison had just laughed at them in a sort of nervous, bemused way.

Jamie nuzzled into her shoulder and whispered, "We had sex," voice hushed with disbelief, and Brian let out a loud hoot of laughter.

"You're kidding," was all Alison could say as she shook her head at them. "Jamie." She looked into his eyes. "You _didn't_." But he didn't have to say anything more; she knew it was true. He'd talked often of their time at university together, of the times they'd fooled around when Jamie had gotten a little too drunk. He always tried to brush it off as youthful experimentation, but Alison wasn't so sure.

She doesn't remember what happened next, exactly, except that the three of them laughed a lot and then Jamie left the room, supposedly to get some water but he never came back. In his absence, Brian had said filthy things about threesomes that made Alison squirm, and then he offered her a joint and fucked her on that very same bed, taking her slow and nibbling at her earlobe. She remembers wanting to ask about Jamie, ask what it was _like_ , and even though she knew that Brian would quite happily regale her with the details, she couldn't quite get the words out.

Afterwards, he had traced the lines of her face and whispered, "You're like twins, you know."

Alison had coughed out a laugh and told him he was stoned, because she and Jamie didn't look _anything_ alike—but later, she realised that he must have meant something else. Something only he was in a position to compare.

When she came back downstairs Jamie was deep in conversation with somebody and she dragged him away to tell him what had happened, approaching it in the same giddy, childish way that he had, tugging on his sleeve with her face all flushed and her knees wobbly. But his face had gone harsh and he shrugged her off, said he didn't want to talk about it. She hasn't told him about the other times, but she knows that he knows, in the same way she's sure it was just a one-off for him.

Tonight, it's awkward because it's been so long, and Alison finds that she feels instantly more comfortable when Jamie disappears to the bathroom and she and Brian head into the kitchen to mix some more drinks. She realises then that she wants to kiss him, that it's been too long since the last time.

"Brian," she murmurs, trying not to let her voice edge into 'pleading' as she brushes her cheek against his, kisses his skin gently.

"Alison," Brian sing-songs back at her.

She has him pinned up against the counter, and his hands are wrapped around the rim of it. Her own hands are on his hips, clutching tightly at him. 

"I have a family now," he says to her, softly like she doesn't _know_ that, like he's trying to let her down easy.

"Yeah, you and everybody else," she snaps, and it comes out so _hostile_ , so bitter and brutal that she even surprises herself.

Brian lets out a shocked little laugh and she pulls back, looks at him apologetically—but he kisses her for it, hands smoothing up her back. She almost moans with the relief of it and kisses him harder, but he eases off, gentle.

"He fucked you," Alison blurts out, and finds that she wanted to say _that_ even more than she wanted to kiss him.

"What?" Brian says, bemused, tucking a stray strand of hair behind Alison's ear. Before Alison manages to clarify, Brian gets it, and he smiles—maybe a little too brightly, because it makes Alison feel like she's being mocked. " _Oh._ Many moons ago, yes."

"What was it like?" Alison demands, fingers curling into his belt loops, still holding him close as though he might run.

Brian's smile freezes and fades, and something else comes over his face, another sort of realisation, one that he keeps to himself. "Wonderful," he says instead, with a sly grin. "Always wondered why you never asked."

Alison hears the bathroom door creak open from down the hall and she draws back slowly. Neither of them say anything and they don't need to; he understands. She thinks he understands even better than she does, and she longs for him to explain, but then Jamie is there, standing anxiously before them with his hands in his pockets. The vague, complex tension that has surrounded the three of them all night intensifies in this moment, becomes unbearable.

"It's getting late," Brian smiles brightly, checking his watch. "But it's been a delight. Always is."

He kisses them both on the cheek, and is gone with a wink. Jamie decides to sleep over, pours himself a glass of water and disappears off to his bedroom without a word. Alison is glad of it, somehow, just to have him in the house. It feels like a comfort.

***

Glastonbury is trying. Alison and Jack have burnt out, reached an unspoken agreement that this needs to stop, but it doesn't mean the tension between them automatically dissipates. Alison still longs for him, and has to try and ignore the aching in her chest as she stomps about the stage. She hates performing in the daytime and everything feels too hot and bright, and even with crowds of people stretching out as far as the eye can see, she feels strangely isolated. She's been with Jamie so much over the past couple of months that she adjusted, once again, to being with him instead of with the others, and now it's reversed and the whole thing is just so _stressful_ , she doesn't know how she's supposed to cope. When she collapses on the stage floor in front of the drumkit, it's less for dramatic effect and more because she can't fucking _do_ this anymore. 

But then, unexpectedly, halfway through their set, Jamie shows up. She just whirls around and suddenly he's _there_ , sitting by the side of the stage as though he was here all along. She doesn't care that they're in the middle of a song, just rushes off stage and kisses him, and she has his hand firm on the back of her head and his lips on hers and it doesn't matter that it can only last a split-second—it gives her all the strength she needs. Jack is glowering as she trots back in front of the crowd, but she feels lighter on her feet and more able. Now she feels as though she's performing for Jamie, and that's something familiar, something she's always been able to do.

 _Will There Be Enough Water_ makes her blood thrum though, as she and Jack sing to each other right in front of Jamie's eyes. She has her back to him but she's so aware of him _watching_ , and she thinks of what she told Kate—it's part of the show. That's all it can be now. She and Jack can't let themselves slip back into their habits, let this lead to anything more. 

But it's so _hard_ to look him in the eye, to be so close to him and to know that there's no chance of him fucking her ruthlessly backstage afterwards, to know that this moment, this song, is all she's going to get. It makes her want to wring it dry, but with Jamie standing just a few feet behind her it feels impossible. She feels torn again. She bumps Jack semi-accidentally, and, weak, ends up slumped against his back, pushing him closer to the mic and inhaling the smell of his sweat on his t-shirt, feeling the firm warmth of his back against her cheek. She ricochets from him and is back in Jamie's arms while the last note of the song is still ringing out across the crowd. He cradles her wordlessly and it almost seems like he understands, though they will never speak of it, and though it clearly tears him apart to even imagine. There might be a strange satisfaction in that knowledge, she thinks, but it is buried so deeply under so many other things that it's almost negligible. All that matters now is the time they have, the next few days before she leaves, again, for the umpteenth time.

Because then comes further touring in Europe, all the way through to August.

It's easier than before, though. With each show she feels a little stronger, and spending time with Jack day-in and day-out again leads to a growing sort of comfort between them. A less volatile relationship blossoms where it never had the chance before. Twice more, they have sex, after a pair of particularly intense shows when Alison doesn't even behave any differently but Jack clearly cannot fight the temptation anyway and gives in. But it does not destroy anything—they are shaky for a week and then their own strange version of fine, and before she knows it she's back home with all of it behind her. That's the end—no more Dead Weather shows for the foreseeable future—and for now, at least, Alison feels okay about it.

***

"I want a ciggie. Come out with me, Alison," Kate says, tugging at Alison's sleeve like a toddler. 

It's Alison's birthday. She has spent the night having dinner with friends, and now they're in a little secret speakeasy in Soho—both establishments chosen by Kate, who explained that it was her responsibility to keep the paparazzi in the dark. It's worked out so far, thank god, but Alison has a rather unsettling feeling that the night is going to end badly. It's nothing she can be too specific about, just an odd feeling of tension and impatience in her bones, something that has been quietly trying to settle there since she came off tour. It's been nearly four months and that's about as long as she can last, she thinks, sitting around at home going stir crazy. 

Jamie has been coming over less and less, spending more time with Kate than ever, the two of them putting plans in place for their wedding next year. Alison has been lonely and agitated, prowling around the house in the early hours and wishing Jamie still lived with her so they could be insomniacs together. Sometimes they used to stay up all night, go out at four in the morning and try to spot animals (and Jamie would always hold her hand if a fox ran in their path and she got scared). They'd try and cook gourmet dishes together and get all dressed up for their own private midnight dinner parties, or stay up laughing at the porn channels on TV that Noel once signed them up for. 

She thinks it's okay that he moved out, but only so long as she's not there to notice. Being home, it's blindingly clear how _alone_ she is. Nights out with friends only serve to make it more obvious when she comes home to an empty house. She's been staying over at Noel's more—he's dating someone now, but Noel says she doesn't mind, that she'd probably get on quite well with Alison and he'll have to hook them up. Jamie treats the whole thing like it's a joke, says she's going to pick up some disease or other, and only shuts up when she brings up the time he let Noel suck him off a couple of years ago.

Noel is fun, anyway, and he's a decent replacement for Jamie when it comes to having someone to talk to, someone to have silly little adventures with when she's bored. But he's no substitute for the violent, desperate sex she had with Jack—they've been sleeping together for so long that she's used to it, and it's too comfortable, predictable. Half the excitement with Jack was that sometimes she wanted to and he _wouldn't_ , but Noel is up for it all the time. It's become almost boring. 

In general, she feels bored. Lonely, and listless. Most of the time she flat-out refuses to factor Jamie into the equation, because when they do see each other it's lovely, and it's fine, even when Kate is there as well. So she puts it all down to Jack, reads stupid true-life stories in trashy magazines about women who had affairs with married men, and transfers all her feelings onto that. Sure, that's how she feels. It makes her feel more normal, like there's some prescribed way for her to behave. It's all explainable, excusable, which makes it seem like maybe nothing is wrong after all.

" _Alison_ ," Kate nags, and Alison looks up sharply, snapped out of her daze.

Before she has a chance to respond, though, Jamie looks up from his conversation, says, "Yeah, go ahead. We'll be out in a minute."

Alison fixes her gaze on him, tries to communicate with her eyes, get him to ask her to stay—but he goes back to his conversation, ignores her. She thinks that in the past that might have worked, but it's so hard to say. Half the time she thinks she's just making shit up these days. Warping memories.

She gets her bag and her jacket and makes a big show of it, for no particular reason, making Kate wait. Outside the restaurant, they wander in silence, end up in an alleyway where Kate leans against the wall and smokes. Alison wraps her arms around herself even though it's not particularly chilly, looks around even though there's nothing to look at. Kate is watching her, studying her, and it's making her uncomfortable.

"What's up with you?" Kate asks eventually, blowing smoke out the corner of her mouth.

"What's up with me?"

"You've been weird for weeks," Kate says with a shrug. Takes another drag. "Is it Jack?"

"What?" It hits her suddenly that Jamie might have told Kate something, and she can't stand the thought of that. It's embarrassing.

Kate shrugs again. "Is it Jack?" she repeats, dragging the words out obnoxiously and then grinning in a way that makes Alison want to deck her.

"Fuck off. I don't know what you mean." Alison kicks at the pavement and then turns, looking off into the distance. 

Kate sort of chuckles. "All right. Touchy." A pause. "Is it me?"

"What?"

"Are you mad at me?"

Alison looks back at her, frowning. "Why would I be mad at you?"

Kate shrugs, flicks ash from her cigarette. "You tell me. You're mad at _something_." She holds out her cigarette packet and Alison takes one, lets Kate light it without saying anything. Kate sighs and says, "You probably just need a good shag."

Alison inhales too sharply and coughs. "I've had one recently, thanks."

"Oh, _Noel_ ," Kate rolls her eyes. Great, so Jamie _does_ tell her these things. "He doesn't count."

"Fuck off," is all Alison can come up with in response. She stomps her way over to the wall a little further down the alley and leans against it. Kate follows, to Alison's dismay.

"See what I mean? So much anger," Kate trills, giggling to herself. She comes in closer, looking Alison up and down in a way that makes her feel uneasy. "Maybe you'd get a boyfriend if you made more of an effort," she says, thoughtfully. "I mean—don't get me wrong, you're gorgeous, but you try really hard to hide it."

Alison is momentarily left speechless, trying to work out whether she's being complimented or insulted. She takes a drag of her cigarette, decides it's making her feel sick and drops it on the ground, stamps it out angrily. She moves to walk away, but Kate closes in on her.

"I mean, you're always in these fucking jeans and t-shirts," Kate hisses, gathering up a handful of cotton in her fist, pulling it away from Alison's body. Alison's stomach quivers as Kate's cold knuckles brush her skin. "Makes me want to see what's underneath." Alison twists, uncomfortable. Kate's voice is low and she speaks around her cigarette as she takes a last drag and then sends it the same way as Alison's. "Jamie says your body's beautiful. I don't understand why you don't show it off."

The words make Alison's heart ache. Jamie's the only person—the only person in the world—who's made her feel completely comfortable when she's naked. Even with her longest-term boyfriends, even with Noel, she's never felt quite at ease but Jamie—Jamie is different. If she's changing or if he wanders into the bathroom while she's showering, neither of them even bat an eye. And if she's bemoaning something, some part of her body, he'll always tell her to shut up because she's perfect.

One morning, when they were sharing a bed in some shitty hotel room way back when, she sat up and peeled off her sweaty t-shirt to start getting dressed for the day, and she stretched, arms held high above her head. Jamie, half-asleep, leaned in close to her and pressed his lips to the skin of her underarm. Alison's arms snapped down in an instant, nearly clocking him on the head, and she was stunned speechless. He just smiled sleepily at her and rolled over. It was so _intimate_ , she could hardly believe it. 

It's been a long time since he's seen her naked now.

"If you were wearing a dress right now I'd have my hand under it," Kate murmurs. "You could wear a dress one day, you know. Wouldn't kill you. You gonna wear one at my wedding?"

Alison scoffs at her, and it sounds stupid—she doesn't sound like she's in control and she hates that. This is all Kate's doing and she feels like she's lost her footing on a high ledge. She doesn't know what her next move should be. She considers shoving Kate away, and instantly realises that she doesn't _want_ to. She _wants_ to slump against the wall and see what happens next. Fuck.

It's a realisation that catches her off-guard—she's never really taken Kate seriously, interpreted all these come-ons as nothing more than strangely-veiled insults, and the thought of something coming from them is startlingly exciting. Suddenly she pictures Jamie and Kate in bed together—she walked in on them once, back when they'd just started dating and Kate slept over at the house and Alison foolishly wandered in to say goodnight without knocking. She'd mostly blocked the image from her memory but it comes back now; Kate straddling him, her red-painted nails stark against his chest, her hair flowing down her back, Jamie's bare thighs and the stunned, embarrassed look on his face when he saw Alison in the doorway.

A part of Alison wants to go through with this, but Jamie links them in every way, and she just can't. Even the underwear she's wearing tonight belonged to him once—a ragged old pair of boxers she nicked from him years ago, that used to lie forgotten in the back of her underwear drawer but lately have been worn more and more often. She pictures Jamie now as she looks at Kate, and in a flash, she's pushing her away. She wants to light another cigarette just for something to do, waiting for the scathing remark—but to her surprise Kate says nothing. Alison doesn't want to turn around and look at her, but the silence feels like victory.

It's literally only about a second before they hear Jamie's voice, making them both jump, and then he appears, standing there at the entrance to the alleyway. He has his hands stuffed in the pockets of his grey peacoat and a puzzled expression on his face as he looks at them, at his two girls. He calls them that sometimes, usually when he's had a bit too much to drink—slings his arms around the both of them and slurs soppy stuff about his two girls, his best girls—and Alison blushes and laughs and hates herself for it, squirms out of reach and tells him he's had enough. 

"You all right?" Jamie calls, doesn't wait for an answer before adding, "ready to go?"

"Yeah!" Kate calls back. "Ali's just being a little bitch. Says she's gonna quit."

"What?!" Jamie and Alison's responses are one, and Kate shoots Alison a look that she can't interpret. 

Kate skips down the alley towards Jamie and slips her arm through his. "She keeps going on about it, she hasn't told you?"

Alison simply glowers, and says nothing.

***

They work some more on the album throughout December, only coming home for Christmas. Jamie is weirdly tense—even more than he usually gets in the studio—obsessing over which version of which track to choose, saying repeatedly that Alison's vocals are too loud when they sound just fine to her. She can't help but be stressed out too, but it's mostly due to the fact that she now has to go along with Kate's lie and pretend she's quit smoking. She has to resort to sneaking the odd cigarette whenever she happens to be outside on her own, and then covering up later like a rebellious teenager. It's ridiculous and she's smoking a lot less than usual which makes her crabby, nervous, nauseous. Neither of them are particularly pleasant to be around. 

It's not until New Year that they begin trying to think of a name for the album, and Alison struggles more than ever, unable to come up with a single suggestion. She listens to the record through a few times, but it feels incoherent to her, disjointed. She doesn't know how to sum it up in a few words; she can't find a common theme.

On New Year's Eve, Jamie gets extremely drunk. This might bother Alison, ordinarily, but tonight she's just relieved to see him chill out. He's lurching around, chatting excitedly to the friends who've joined them for the night, smothering Kate with kisses. In the early hours of the morning, the party still in full-swing, he suddenly appears beside Alison and announces that he's got it. The album title. _Sex Tapes._

There is a shocked pause and then Alison bursts out laughing. " _Sex Tapes?_ " she echoes in disbelief. "Jamie. You're drunk."

He looks hurt. "You don't get it," he says, but it's more of an observation than an accusation.

Alison shakes her head, still laughing a little. He gazes off in the other direction, watching the festivities continue, and he looks thoughtful and a little sad. On instinct, she strokes his arm, and is surprised to see him jolt slightly at the touch. "It's okay. We'll come up with something."

She keeps thinking about it all night, wondering where the fuck it came from. She'd been trying to find a topic, a common thread between all the songs on the record—she wonders if that's what Jamie did, and how all he got out of it was _sex_. After everyone finally stumbles off to bed at 5am, Alison stays up, shuts herself in the studio and listens to the album from start to finish once again, trying to understand. Jamie's lyrics make no more sense to her now than they did when she read his first drafts, but from what she can gather there's no more sex in this record than any of their others. A line here or there, as there's always been.

She sits there, hunched up small in one of the huge leather chairs with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, listening and listening and finishing off a bottle of brandy from the party. She wakes up there several hours later with the headphones playing nothing more than a static hum in her ears, and the phrase _blood pressures_ scribbled on a notepad in front of her.

It seems to fit.


	2. Chapter 2

By the end of January, the album is mixed and mastered, done and dusted. The tour has been booked. All that's left to do is plan out the setlist, which proves to be a much more difficult task than Alison anticipated.

It's not helped by her recent decision to quit smoking for real—as her daily intake went down, she felt she may as well, but she's rapidly beginning to regret it. She's spent all morning vomiting and has gone through countless packs of Nicorette gum, tired and irritable and sore, and she's fairly certain she's gaining weight. Jamie, rather unsympathetic, has pointed out that he always comes to her and she should join him at Kate's this time instead.

"Wow, you look like shit," is how he greets her when she shows up.

Thankfully Kate is out, but it still feels strange being here, in her house. Alison hadn't really realised it until now, but she _has_ sort of avoided visiting Jamie at his new home, reluctant to come to terms with the fact that he's moved out even though over the past six months, his impromptu visits to Red Meat Heart have dwindled.

They sit side-by-side on a sofa in the living room, with a fresh pad of paper and a pen between them, and it takes a while for them to really get anywhere. Picking songs off _Blood Pressures_ is the easy part; some of them are made to be played live, others not so much. But they run into trouble once they start trying to decide which songs from their back catalogue should still get played. There are a couple of classics they agree on, but some of Alison's favourites—that she assumes are also Jamie's—are met with uncertain silence on his end.

" _Kissy Kissy_ , though," she implores, as Jamie hems and haws over it.

"I guess so," he says eventually, scribbling it down in the 'maybe' column.

"You _guess_ so?" Alison asks, frowning, smacking her gum in irritation.

"All right, chill out," he says, crossing it out and moving it over. "What else?" he asks before she has a chance to get on his case about it.

" _Last Day of Magic_ ," she says instantly, and is about to move right on without a second thought when she realises that Jamie's dithering again. "What? Why not?"

"No, I dunno, it's just—it's not one of the _best_ is it?"

"It is to me."

There is a long pause, and then Jamie writes it down in the 'maybe' column, and Alison feels the anger starting to well up in her blood. " _Goodnight Bad Morning_ ," she grits out, waiting for him to put that under 'maybe' as well, and then, to her surprise, he puts the pen right down. "What?" she snaps.

Jamie rubs his forehead. "I dunno. It just—it doesn't fit."

"What do you mean it doesn't fit?" Alison fires back.

He almost laughs, like he's taken aback by her, like she's overreacting. It makes her even more mad. "Well," he says slowly, like he's speaking to a child, "it was perfect for _Midnight Boom_ , wasn't it? It was like...it just encapsulated stuff from back then, and now it's not—well, it's not relevant." Alison frowns at him. That doesn't seem like enough of a reason to scrap it completely. "We've already got a ballad, anyway. Don't wanna bring the whole thing down twice."

Alison is quiet for a moment then asks, "What do you mean by 'relevant'?"

Jamie rolls his eyes. "Oh, don't make a big thing of it, it's just—it was about like one week years ago. It doesn't fit with any of the new stuff. That's all there is to it."

Alison can feel her heart pounding faster in her chest. Maybe she _is_ overreacting, but they always used to say that week was so fucking special, when they were writing _Midnight Boom_ and they stayed up too long and took too many drugs and lost track of time, of reality, just clinging onto one another until it felt like they became one person. It was magical. It's still drenched in gold in _her_ memory, and it seems like Jamie's ready to throw it out with the trash. She looks at him now and suddenly it feels like a very, very long time ago.

"Maybe, okay? We can think about it," Jamie sighs and leans back, reaching for a packet of cigarettes from the end table beside him. Alison stares in disbelief as she watches him open it up and pull one out, fumble for a lighter from his pocket, light it, take a drag. He turns it over in his fingers, silent and thoughtful. 

Suddenly, Alison explodes—throws herself at him and knocks the thing out of his hand, chucks his lighter at the wall. "I _quit_ , you asshole," she shouts, incensed, her blood fucking boiling. 

For a moment Jamie says nothing, just stares at her like he's in shock or like he's going to make some smart comment—but then, to her surprise, he shoves her right back. She fights against it, her hands spread out across his chest, pushing 'til he's on his back and she's straddling him. Her heart's thudding so loud in her ears she can barely think, and all she can register is that this feels _good_ , it feels like something she needs. They haven't had a fight for so long that she can't even _remember_ the last one, and it feels like this has been building, quietly, for a long time.

Jamie knees her in the back and she yowls, spits her gum in his face. He struggles and then throws her off him, onto the floor where his cigarette lies, having burnt a hole in the fabric of Kate's rug. She lies there on her back, bruises forming, her head stinging like fuck where it knocked against the leg of the coffee table when she went down. She can't think straight, she just needs to make him feel that same pain, and she forces her way to her feet and grabs him by the shirt, heaving him up off the sofa and pummelling at his chest with her fists.

Distantly, she's aware that this is different to their usual fights—that usually they would be screaming abuse at each other as well as getting physical. Usually it's their words that end up hurting each other the most, and all the pushing and shoving is almost an afterthought.

But right now he has her by the throat, and she's squirming and kicking at him, grabbing at his hands to try and get them off her, barely able to breathe anymore yet feeling such an enormous sense of relief. He wrestles her back down onto the sofa, pushing her onto it backwards so she ends up flung over the side with the armrest digging into her back and him on top of her, a crushing weight. She's gasping for breath and all they're doing now is _grabbing_ at each other; him pulling roughly at a fistful of her hair and her clawing at his back, his t-shirt pulled up to expose skin into which she digs her fingernails. 

Suddenly her ass slips down onto the sofa and her legs wrap around him, and she squeezes and scratches and realises that they're both making these _noises_ —grunting and hissing like animals. His face is a mere inch or so from hers and he's red and sweaty, and she's not sure she's ever _seen_ him so fucking angry. She wonders how she looks, her teeth grinding against each other, her hair in her eyes. She can feel the heat from him, feel the sweat on his back, and she suddenly becomes aware that they're staring at each other, that his eyes are burning into hers, and it's alarming in a way it never has been. Looking into Jamie's eyes used to be all comfort and safety; they could stare at each others for hours, unflinching. But right now this feels like the longest eye contact they've held in years and she panics, her head jerking up just as he ducks down, and she feels his teeth sink into the soft skin of her cheek at the same moment that their foreheads collide sharply.

She screams so loud she almost doesn't hear the sound of the front door opening.

Jamie leaps off of her in an instant and Alison gradually registers the giggly call of "Honey, I'm home!" and then two chattering voices, realises that Kate's bringing her daughter home from school. Her cheek is stinging so bad and so hot that she's convinced she must have blood running down her face, but as she stumbles to her feet she clutches it and all she can feel is the vague dents of teethmarks.

Kate appears in the doorway, arms loaded with shopping bags, and, on seeing the two of them, instantly shuts the door behind her. In the distance, they hear Lila Grace running upstairs.

Kate drops her bags and crosses her arms. "What the fuck?" 

"Minor disagreement," Jamie says through his teeth.

Alison runs her fingers back through her hair, grabs the notebook from the coffee table and excuses herself, squeezing past a motionless Kate and struggling to twist the doorhandle with her sweaty hands. 

She manages to stay calm all the way home, but the second her own front door is closed behind her she almost has a panic attack. She keeps trying to reassure herself—this is hardly the first time they've had a bad fight, hardly the first time they've injured one another. And their fights usually end in the two of them getting as far away from each other as possible in order to cool down, so she feels confident that in a few days things will return to normal.

But for some reason her heart is still in her throat and she feels dizzy, breathless like he's still choking her. She can still feel the tugging on her hair, his teeth in her skin. It didn't feel like the fights they used to have. It felt like something new and uncomfortable and frightening, and maybe that's what scares her—the fact that there seems to be no end to it, this slow and nameless change to their relationship. She's beginning to feel like the whole thing might slip from her fingers, but she doesn't know if she needs to hold on tighter or loosen her grip.

She never used to have to think about it.

She paces around the house like a lion in a cage, fingers barely leaving her sore cheek until the dents fade to faint red marks. She can't sit still or calm down at all, and without thinking, she grabs her keys and leaves the house again, ends up at Noel's with only a vague recollection of the journey. Thankfully he's home, and alone.

The moment he sees her, he looks bewildered. "Hey, are you all right?" he asks as she pushes past him.

She shakes her head and can't stop shaking it and she swears she can feel the adrenaline _still_ pulsing through her veins.

"What do you need?" Noel asks gently, and before she knows what she's doing she's grabbing him by the throat and pinning him against the wall, stronger than ever. She starts clawing at his jeans, trying to get them open, and he's gone limp, only nodding, letting her do what she wants. He's half-hard by the time she's got her hand in his pants, gasping and gazing at her, and she lets go of his neck and turns his face roughly away from her, holds it there as she jerks him off frantically. 

" _Fuck_ ," he whines breathlessly as he comes, twisting in her tight grip, cheek rubbing raw against the wall.

She wipes her hand on his shirt agitatedly and takes a step back, arms folded, staring at him. Tentatively, he begins to turn his head to look at her, and she spits right at his face, slaps him when he grins, and then she's gone, running down the stairs and out of the apartment, still feeling dazed but much better. Her phone buzzes thirty seconds later with a teasing text from him— _a delight as ever ms mosshart xx_ —and she only wishes she'd got him to bring her off too before she left.

***

A week later, she and Jamie make up, encouraged by Kate and apologising to one another in an awkward, feet-scuffing sort of way like moody teenage boys. Alison agrees to leave _Last Day of Magic_ and _Goodnight Bad Morning_ off the setlist as long as _Kissy Kissy_ can stay, and Jamie accepts. He even splits his time on Valentine's Day between Alison and Kate—it's the ninth anniversary of their first gig and Kate is gracious and understanding and lets Alison have him for the first half of the day. They don't do anything special, just hang out like they used to, and Alison begins to actually look forward to the tour instead of feeling a sort of faint, gnawing dread in the pit of her stomach.

Once again, she lets herself hope that things are going to get better.

***

Alison stands in the ensuite bathroom of a Parisian hotel room, brushing tangles from her hair and chewing the skin from her bottom lip. She scowls at herself in the mirror. She hasn't showered yet and her make-up is smeared, her face still visibly sweaty.

"You all right?" Jamie calls from the bedroom.

"Yeah. Just losing about half my hair."

"You toss it around more than you used to." In the mirror, Alison can see him through the doorway behind her. He's paging through a book, already all cleaned up and tucked into bed.

"I don't," she says, but it's mostly to herself. She yanks again with the brush and then gives up. She looks at herself in the mirror for a moment longer, and then says, "Do I?"

"What? Yeah." Jamie glances up. "You've probably just got used to having to compete with Jack's mane, it's all right." 

He sort of laughs and then goes back to his book, but Alison isn't done. "Jamie?" she asks meekly, still looking at his reflection in the mirror instead of turning around. "Jamie, am I different onstage?"

Jamie frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Than I used to be."

He wrinkles his nose. "I dunno. A bit. In a good way, I think. You're more confident." 

She can tell he's playing it down, and it makes her feel self-conscious. Tonight was their first proper show, their comeback. Last week was SXSW, but festivals have never really counted in Alison's mind. The discomfort of those two performances she put down to the daylight, and perhaps to their mutual rustiness at being onstage together. But tonight—tonight didn't work. She's toured so much in the past year that she almost lost her mind, and yet she felt utterly lost in front of the crowd tonight. She felt like she was alone without three men surrounding her and music almost drowning her out.

She played a handful of shows with Jamie in between the constant barrage of Dead Weather gigs, but she can barely even remember them in the haze of everything now. It was odd, definitely, to go from one to the other so fast—but it was festivals, fashion shows, a gig with friends. _This_ is what The Kills are—are supposed to be: a packed and sweaty little club and just the two of them onstage, burning together under the bright lights.

Only they didn't. Not tonight.

"It was hard," she admits, and her voice sounds kind of cracked and broken. "D'you think it's just 'cause of—"

"Yeah, probably," Jamie cuts in. He has his finger in his book and she can tell he's itching to get back to it. "It'll get easier. You just need to adjust."

"Yeah," mumbles Alison. "Probably." 

She looks back at herself in the mirror again, and decides she doesn't want to think about it anymore. She wanders back into the bedroom and looks out of the window. They always stay in this hotel and try to get this room when they come here; the view is just perfect. She can see the Eiffel Tower in the distance, and she gazes at it for a while, just listening to street noise and the gentle, intermittent sound of Jamie turning pages.

"I love Paris," she sighs wistfully.

"I know," says Jamie, absentmindedly. "You always have." He turns another page. _Flick._ "We should move here when we get married. Get a place in Montparnasse and ride our bikes everywhere."

Alison is silent for a long, long time, letting a smile slowly creep its way across her face. She bites her lip and doesn't turn around as she asks, "Did you just say 'when we get married'?"

A pause. "Did I?"

"You _did_ ," Alison shrieks. She draws back from the window and pulls the curtains tight. Jamie looks up at her from his bed, somewhat sheepishly. " _Jamie._ You big sap."

"It was a slip of the tongue. Go have your shower, you're disgusting."

Alison giggles, trotting over to him and leaning down to press a big kiss on his cheek, making sure her sweaty, tangled hair gets in his face as much as possible.

"Oh, you—" Jamie splutters, squirming away.

***

A month later they play in Nashville, and Jack offers to put them up for the night after the show. He calls Jamie, who accepts, which means that Alison doesn't even get a chance to turn him down. Then he actually comes to the show, much to Alison's surprise, and for some reason she feels even less comfortable onstage than she has in the past month, which is saying something. She almost feels fake, in a way that she can't really describe—as though having Jack watching highlights every little change and every little bit of discomfort she feels up there. Because the shows haven't gotten any easier, and she still hasn't adjusted, and she's not even sure she's able.

Karen is waiting up when they get into the house, and after Jamie and Alison have taken showers, the four of them stay up and chat over some wine and snacks for a little while. It feels almost comfortable. Alison has never liked being in Jack's house but tonight it feels okay, like the past might truly be behind them, like she can tell herself she has nothing to feel guilty for. Like she can look Karen in the eye. 

Karen goes up to bed first, but Jamie stays up a while longer and Alison gets the impression that it's very deliberate, that he doesn't want to leave the two of them alone. It pisses Alison off, perhaps more than it should. She wants to tell him that she's not planning on making out with Jack while his wife sleeps upstairs (and she feels vaguely disgusted that Jamie might think _that_ lowly of her) but that even if she _were_ , it's her life and he has no right to interfere. 

Instead, she glowers at him over her wine, and then over her whiskey when they move into the living room and Jack puts a quiet record on the gramophone. She barely speaks to Jamie directly and she is irritable and childish, and eventually he grows tired of it, politely asks Jack which room is his tonight and goes up to it, leaving his whiskey unfinished.

The moment they hear the creak of the last stair, Jack lets out a long, low whistle. Alison, her own whiskey long gone, reaches for Jamie's and takes a sullen sip.

"So," says Jack, leaning back in his armchair like a smug psychiatrist. "You gonna tell me what's going on?"

Alison lets the whiskey sit in her mouth for a moment and then swallows, looking up at him and flicking her still-damp hair out of her eyes. She suddenly feels very small and young and stupid, sitting here on his sofa in the dark with some old blues record she's never heard playing low in the background. Jack's still all dressed up from the show and she's in a hoodie and a pair of Jamie's old jeans, her legs folded up under her. 

"I don't know what you mean," she says crisply.

Jack laughs. "Cut the bullshit. I've never seen the two of you like that."

"Like what?"

"Like normal fuckin' performers." Jack practically spits out the words. "I mean, you were great, you're always great, individually you were on the ball, but _together_ —that was _weak._ "

Alison scowls at him. She's aware, of course, that something's not quite right. That the two of them don't gel the way they used to onstage. That some indefineable thing is missing. But she wants to believe that it's temporary, that it can all be explained away. She tries not to think about it because it makes her insecure, makes her more anxious before every show and less confident during. To have _Jack_ pick up on it so fast, and call her out on it—it just makes her want to curl up in a corner.

"Thanks. Glad you came," she sneers instead, taking a swig of whiskey. He doesn't apologise, so she says, "We're just finding our feet again. Support might be nice."

Jack gives her an extremely skeptical look: eyebrows raised, nose wrinkled, slightly mocking smile on his face. "And what about offstage?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Jack rolls his eyes, and rubs his temples in irritation. "If you don't see it, that's your own problem, but honestly that baffles me, because I could sense it a mile away."

"Please, enlighten me," Alison says sarcastically, coughing.

"It's like—" he starts, and then is silent for a moment like he's trying to find the right bizarre analogy. "An asymptote," he says finally, and Alison stares blankly at him. "Math, Alison." She continues to stare. She _hates_ it when he gets like this; he manages to annoy her and make her feel like an idiot simultaneously. "From the Greek. _Not falling together_ is the translation. It's a line which approaches a curve infinitely, but never meets it. Say x equals zero—"

"I didn't finish high school, Jack," Alison snaps impatiently. "Speak _English_."

"You think fucking will ruin your relationship," Jack says abruptly, startling her a little. " _Not_ fucking is ruining your relationship, and you don't even see that." 

He rubs his temple, exasperated but sort of grinning to himself like he's got it all figured out and she's a total fool. Alison is speechless. She fumbles desperately for words, because Jack is not allowed to make her speechless, and especially not with something like _this_ , when he clearly feels so smug and superior. But there are no words. She simply stares at him.

He takes a sip of his whiskey and looks at her quizzically, his lips pursed as he swallows. "Cat got your tongue?"

"Don't be an asshole." She punches him in the shoulder.

"I'm _right_ ," he says, and he's not actually gloating, but even so it drives her crazy. He shakes his head tiredly at her. "That's why all you can do is resort to violence. Please don't try and argue, I don't have the energy."

"What, you think we can just _fuck_ and that'll solve all our problems?" Alison snaps back. "How fucking _basic_ is that advice, Jack—oh, just have sex and it'll all be fine, throw thirteen years down the drain, it doesn't matter."

He raises his eyebrows at her and says nothing for a moment, very pointedly. She resists the urge to punch him again. "'Throw thirteen years down the drain'?" he echoes. 

She raises her eyebrows right back at him, says nothing. Challenges him. He sighs and says nothing and she relents. "Jack, please."

Jack snaps. "Thirteen years of friendship down the _drain_? What, you think that as soon as you fuck someone, they're no longer your friend? You can fuck your friends, Alison. You of all people should know _that_ , Jesus."

"Not _Jamie_ ," she says faintly. She doesn't even want to think about it, putting him on the same level as everybody else. It feels cruel, but she can't voice that, because it _sounds_ cruel, as though she doesn't care about anyone but him.

"Why not Jamie?" Jack demands, and he seems genuinely angry now, more frustrated than she's seen him in a while. Like all of this is just boiling up out of him. "Why, Alison? For God's sake, tell me, once and for all, _why not Jamie?_ And don't give me that bullshit about not seeing him in that way or him being your fucking brother or how it'll _ruin what you have_ —because it's already starting to spoil and you can see that, I know you can."

Alison feels her eyes starting to sting and she bites her lip hard, trying not to cry. Just the thought of crying in front of Jack is so humiliating she can't bear it. She juts her chin at him. "What we have is more special than that."

She's never seen him roll his eyes so hard. He throws himself against the back of the sofa and says nothing for another long moment, reaching for his drink and finishing it, taking his time. Alison just sits there watching him, shaking slightly.

"I don't wanna hurt you, Alison," Jack says finally, and his voice is very low and serious. "You think I'm being cruel, but I'm saying this because I care about you. Both of you. This is something you refuse to hear and I can't stand it; I'm not gonna watch everything go to shit because you wouldn't listen."

"Okay," Alison hears herself say, voice trembling.

"You're not fucking special," Jack says quietly, his voice gentle even as the words are harsh. "Your relationship doesn't reach some higher plane because you don't have sex. That doesn't make it _better_. You tell yourselves it does because you're too scared to admit that you want it, you're giving yourselves all kinds of bullshit reasons because you're afraid of taking a risk. But you know what? We all take risks. Sex changes things. Yeah, sometimes you fuck your friend and then you can't even be friends anymore. But sometimes you end up marrying them. The change isn't always something terrible. You've convinced yourself it would be, lied to yourself over and over so you can justify hiding, and you act so fucking fearless but this one thing—this _one thing_ —scares you so much you'd rather risk ruining the _best thing in your life_ than confront it."

Alison opens her mouth. She doesn't know what to say, but she needs to say something, _anything_ —and Jack clamps his hand over her lips.

"You're gonna want to argue with me," he goes on, "I know. Because that's your defense mechanism. That's what your brain does whenever any inkling of this enters it. Shuts it down in whatever way it can. Because you're scared to admit that it might be true. And you need to get over that fear, Alison, because it doesn't make any sense. _You will not lose him._ You could never lose him. Even if you actively fuckin' _tried._ "

Alison can't help but smile at that, against the warm sweaty palm of his hand; he feels it and she gets a hint of a smile in return.

"It's not my business, I know," he says, gently taking his hand away. "And I've kept out of it for that very reason, but it's fucking infuriating watching two people you love be so _obtuse_. You just stubbornly cling to this idiotic idea and no one ever points out how dumb it is."

He's sort of muttering to himself now, reaching for the whiskey bottle to pour himself some more. He tops up her—Jamie's—glass too, and hands it to her. She brings it to her mouth, but before it reaches her lips she bursts out, "He's gonna get _married_ , Jack." It seems, for some reason, like the most important thing to say. The easiest.

Jack almost smiles again. "That's not the be-all and end-all." Alison looks at him doubtfully. "I believe," he goes on, "that there aren't any rules." He takes a sip of whiskey. "And if there _are_ —well, I don't believe you should follow them."

Alison rolls her eyes at him. "Oh sure, Mister Wife-and-Kids."

There's a moment's pause, and Alison looks at him curiously. He sighs. "I'm soon to be twice-divorced, actually, but feel free to put me in whichever box you choose."

Alison is, for the second time, left speechless. Jack leans forward and, to her surprise, kisses her on the lips. It lasts a little longer than a casual peck, but it's chaste, and his lips are warm and taste sharp. "Listen, just drink your whiskey," he smiles at her. "You'll feel better."

Alison does as she's told, and he's right. He's always fucking right.

***

After that, it really starts to hurt. Everything does. It hurts to look at Jamie. It hurts not to look at him. It hurts when he touches her, and when he pulls away. She begins to build a shell around herself, tries to enjoy the shows for what they are, and gradually, they become different animals altogether. She doesn't perform for him anymore at all.

He is either abruptly violent or pitifully tender these days; there is no in between. Sometimes he'll hold her and it will feel condescending somehow, like all those little visits back to the house, like he thinks she needs him and it's an obligation. But every now and then something will break through and he'll snap, just a little. Point his guitar at her like a gun and pull the trigger. Tug sharply at her hair after they bow when he wants to get offstage. She doesn't know what to make of it but for some reason it feels promising, like there's something inside him clawing to get out.

***

"Jack thinks Jamie and I need to fuck," Alison says sort of dreamily, in a hotboxed tent at Glastonbury, playing with a false gash in Noel Fielding's arm.

"You probably do," Noel replies.

Alison isn't particularly surprised by this answer. For the first couple of years that he knew them, Noel absolutely refused to believe that Alison and Jamie _hadn't_ fucked, and has never quite come to terms with it. ("Just because _you've_ fucked everyone you've ever met," Alison said spitefully once, and Noel had replied "Not _everyone_. I draw the line at blood relations. And children.") Alison gives him a pointed look but he's gazing off in another direction. She takes advantage of this and peels off the fake injury, the rubbery thing coming off his skin like dried PVA glue. It's oddly satisfying.

"Oi. I'm s'posed to be a zombie," says Noel. "You're de-zombifying me. You're—you're—"

Alison snorts. "Bringing you back from the dead?"

Noel gets caught in some sort of mental paradox for a moment, lost in his own thoughts. Alison cuddles up to him and sighs. "He's getting married next month, you know."

"I know."

"I can't fuck him if he's getting married next month." It's a stupidly simplified sentence, something she wouldn't even bring herself to _think_ otherwise. But the combination of Noel and pot makes it okay.

"You could wait 'til the wedding day and do the whole _speak now or forever hold your peace_ thing. Come running in and declare your love. Or, y'know, your desire to fuck the groom. Whichever." Noel ponders this for a second. "It'd be amazing."

"Speak now or forever hold my peace?" Alison says faintly. "Are those my only options?"

"I guess you could speak later. Hold your peace for a bit and then put it down. I don't think there's a law." Right now, Alison thinks that seems like a pretty good plan of action. "Bit of a cop-out, though," Noel adds.

"Whose tent is this?" asks Alison.

"What? I dunno."

"Do you want to fuck in it?"

"Okay."

Alison hastily half-undresses, clambers on top of him and unzips his pants. Coughs, fumbles, gets him inside of her. She's not quite ready and it burns and drags a little, but it's good. He's grinning up at her, goofily, and she starts plucking at one of the joke-shop cuts on his cheek.

"I've never had sex with a zombie before. Is it necrophilia? Technically?"

Noel shakes his head and then nods. "You should dye your hair," he says, apropos of nothing. "Do it pink, like your eyebrows that one time."

"Jamie thought that looked stupid."

"Fuck Jamie."

"Should I?"

Noel grins at her, and for a split-second she almost catches a glimpse of understanding, of something like sympathy. But then he just says, "Probably," and flips her over onto her back, tickling her all the while and making her squirm and shriek, making him slip out.

She still needs this from Noel, even though it always leaves her feeling a little empty. It gives her something she can't find anywhere else. She doesn't try to dominate him the way she used to—they've become more like equals, having sex the same way they do everything else together, making it fun and sometimes even silly. In the same way Jack gave her excitement and angry passion, Noel now brings a sort of comfort that she's never really been able to find with anyone else she's fucked. He makes her feel less scared of everything, and she needs that, because she feels like a wall is beginning to come down in her mind.

In truth, it's not quite as frightening as she thought it would be. She thought she would fight against it more, but some part of her always wanted Jamie, she just never let herself really _know_ that. And right now it feels okay to know it. She feels safe with that knowledge, with Noel in this little tent. There is no imminent threat.

Outside, though, it's scary. Ever since her talk with Jack, being around Jamie has been scary in a way it never was before. It hurts even when they're not onstage, even when things are peaceful, when they're sitting in their twin beds passing takeout between the gap or watching DVDs together on the tourbus. Suddenly it all feels fragile and breakable and tenuous. Suddenly she is aware of everything she has and everything she doesn't have and everything she might lose. And it makes her realise why she never let herself feel this before, because it's overwhelming to really know what she's missing, to realise that in all likelihood she'll never have it. It has power over her like nothing else, that feeling. It can knock her over in one blow. Denial was easy, but this is something else.

***

Alison stands outside the church, lights her first cigarette in months, and decides to hold her peace. For as long as she can fucking stand it.

***

She told herself maybe it would get better after the wedding. Some foolish belief that maybe Jamie's stress was adding to their difficulties onstage and once it was over with they could just go back to _normal_. But of course, it doesn't go that way. Months pass and nothing changes. Kate joins them for the Australian leg of the tour, and then they're all over the fucking place, jumping from country to country, and it should be exciting, because Alison _loves_ touring, travelling, skipping through timezones and barely sleeping. She used to thrive off it, but lately it feels like it's sucking the life out of her. 

Their shows aren't even a welcome relief from the stress. They still don't feel right, and where it used to be some vague mess of a problem, Alison is beginning to connect the dots. She thinks back to _sex tapes_ and realises that Jamie never _was_ writing about sex, he was writing about the lack of it. It's strange to think _that_ could be what's missing, when it's the one thing they've never had.

The worst part is that Jamie doesn't seem to be aware that anything is missing at all, like whatever came out in his lyrics was in no way conscious. He seems to have a warped view of all of it—one day they're doing an interview and Jamie says he was really happy while they were making the record and then looks to her and adds that she was too, as though he doesn't even remember her breakdown, the crying over her cereal, the panic attacks and the stress. Alison mentions the issue a few times, but he shrugs it off, blames _her_ , says The Dead Weather changed the way she performs and that's all there is to it. Like it's irreparable. Like he has no part in it. Like he doesn't turn away from her onstage these days, doesn't avert his eyes when she looks at him. 

In the past, it felt like they were one entity when they performed. Entirely on the same wavelength. When she tipped her body back and let him between her legs it was not just because she wanted to, but because she could feel that _he_ wanted her to. They would simply gravitate towards each other. Nothing felt conscious. It was like some outside force drew them together.

Whatever it was, it's gone now.

With The Dead Weather, Alison learned how to stare into the crowd without being overcome with fear, and now, without Alison's eyes as his security blanket, Jamie is learning to do the same. Jack shared his mic with Alison and now Jamie does the same only rarely, as though Jack has tainted it. With The Dead Weather, Alison learned new tricks. She found that it was fun to stare the audience down, to get in their faces. She forgot that it was more fun to do that to Jamie, and by the time she remembered, he had moved on. Sometimes he turns his back on her. Sometimes she turns her back on him. She sings one song alone, with him behind her, and she feels like he isn't there at all.

Sometimes they're joined by a choir, or by drummers. It no longer feels like it's just the two of them against the world. Alison feels connected to the audience for the first time in her life, she feels like _one_ of them, like concerts are—all of a sudden—a group experience. She used to survive onstage by drawing an invisible line between her band and everybody else, but now everything intermingles and she feels exposed. Lonely.

Nothing really changes, no matter what she tries. Tonight, in a small club in France, she drags her mic stand closer, gazes at Jamie throughout entire songs, throws herself back with her hips thrust out—and he barely glances at her. She begs him with her eyes. She pleads for him with her voice. She sinks into his shoulder halfway through _DNA_ and feels his muscles work as he plays, feels him tense and unrelenting against her body, unfathomable as a stranger. 

" _We will not be moved by it_ ," she lies, still nestled in the crook of his shoulder, her mic lead trailing across the stage. She almost cries.

He takes her hand too roughly after the encore, blunt fingernails pressing into her skin as he heaves her arm up into the air. She looks at him sidelong and it might just be the heat, it might just be the lights—but it looks as though he's close to tears as well.

The crowd is oblivious, drowning out their _thank you_ with cheers. Alison endeavors simply to try, try again.

***

In October, apparently out of the blue, Jamie puts a handful of old songs back on the setlist. Alison doesn't know why and she doesn't dare ask in case they come right back off again—she just tries to sing them like she used to, and to understand. 

In Brazil, they play _Last Day of Magic_ and she sees a spark of something in his eyes. He still won't look at her properly, still moves away when she comes close—but there's something, _something_ there, back again, and she prays she's not imagining it. She doesn't know what to do with it but she clings on and hopes, says nothing in case she scares it away, and waits, with a gut-aching terrified patience, for more.

***

It's nearing the end of November and the end of the tour is approaching too. They're sitting on a plane on their way to Belgium, and Jamie has been very quiet all day.

"Yeah. No," he says, and then exhales slightly shakily. "I'm just nervous."

"About Brixton?" Alison asks, and he nods. 

It strikes her suddenly that maybe it was an odd assumption to make—Jamie could easily be nervous about tonight's show, or about any of their other upcoming ones, but it seemed natural to her, almost like she already knew the reason for his unease. It's sort of comforting to be right. She always used to be able to sense his moods so easily, know exactly what was pissing him off, but for a long time now it's felt like he's in a different world.

Jamie frowns to himself. "I was just trying to work out—is is the biggest one we've done? In the UK, I mean?"

"I think so."

Jamie widens his eyes. "It is, isn't it? Shit."

"What?"

He shifts in his seat. "Nothing, I just..." He seems to deliberate over his words for a while; something Alison knows means he's uncomfortable with the topic. "I just don't feel like we've been..." he sort of trails off, and then finishes the sentence with "lately," leaving her to fill in the blank. They used to do that all the time, not needing to say everything in order to understand each other.

But still, he says it almost questioningly, as though he's afraid she won't agree. As though just because she gave up mentioning it months ago means it no longer makes her ache right in her bones. "Yeah," she says encouragingly. It's quite rare for Jamie to start a serious discussion, to open up about his feelings—especially lately—so she has to be careful, not push it. 

"It's me, I think," he says seriously, staring blankly at the plane's little TV screen in front of him. "I thought it was just you at first, and then I thought anything that was wrong with me was _because_ of you—"

"Thanks," Alison interjects, elbowing him. (It's always safest to be casual, jovial, until it's absolutely clear that he wants to get into it.)

"—but I think it's both of us. Mostly me." He sighs. "I don't know what it is. Probably a combination of things."

"Yeah?" Alison falls serious, studying his face in profile, curious about what he's going to say next. 

But he says nothing, and it's especially frustrating, because she can tell that he's deep in thought and choosing not to share any of it. But she really can't push it; that never works with Jamie. He'll only speak when he's ready, and she knows it, so she keeps quiet too and just leans into his shoulder, snuggles up to him under a scratchy airplane blanket and shuts her eyes as he stares into space. He barely speaks for the rest of the flight, introspective, lost in his own thoughts.

That night in front of the crowd, he barely takes his eyes off her, and her heart swells with hope.

***

They have kissed every night before going onstage; it's ritual, routine. Her recent revelation hasn't turned this into anything it's not. His lips are so familiar to her that these kisses hurt only as much as all the minor things, give her the same sudden and unreasonable stab in her heart as when he passes her something, gently touches her shoulder, says _morning_ in that sleep-rough voice of his—any number of things that sting and smart like they never used to. 

But tonight they've got one of their biggest crowds waiting for them and Alison's heart is in her throat and she doesn't want the kisses to end. She doesn't want to go out there; it's their last gig for some time and she's not ready for all of it to be over. For the first time that surge of desire that she's kept blocked off comes through, breaks the dam—she wants to deepen the kiss and hold him close, cling to him and never let him go. It feels like desperation and it hurts more than anything she's ever experienced; suddenly she can hardly stay on her feet or keep breathing and she hates it, all of it. She hates _herself_ , for being brave enough to feel it, and him for being too afraid.

The pattern ends and she moves back in absolutely instinctively, just _needing_ to feel his lips on hers again. It feels like life or death. She hesitates at the last second, faltering, realising what she's doing—but even before she can pull back, she's being kissed again, this time sudden and fierce and messy, so violent that she's forced back against the wall. She can barely process what's happening, it's all too much—she can feel the firm warmth of hands on either side of her face and a slick tongue in her mouth and she's whimpering, scrabbling for purchase on something. She finds Jamie's hips and they feel familiar against her hands, and she gets dizzy.

They draw back a second, heavy breath mingling. Alison looks into his eyes, searching, and his gaze is set, expression almost grim. Abruptly, he takes her hand in his and holds it tight, leads her out onto the stage to the deafening cheers of the crowd. Her legs barely work, she stumbles after him. The faces of the audience all blur into one; they don't _matter_ , everything is Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. She squeezes his hand and then lets go, hurries over to her microphone in a daze as he fumbles with his guitar.

She feels like she's hyperventilating, she can't remember a single lyric—but as soon as she hears Jamie play they're all there, and she's gripping the microphone in a sure fist and belting them out without taking her eyes off him. 

They hardly look away from one another through the whole set.

They reach _Kissy Kissy_ and Alison can feel the hypnotic rhythm rattling her bones, uprooting her heart. She feels like she's being drawn closer and closer to Jamie as they play, sounds wrapping around each other until they're indistinguishable. 

Barely thinking, she begins to sing, " _Great God Almighty, been thinking all morning_ ," lyrics they haven't added to the song for years, and to her surprise she hears Jamie's voice beneath hers singing the very same words. " _Great God Almighty, been thinking all day._ "

Jamie turns his mic even more with his lips, so he's fully facing her now. He's sweaty, his hair plastered to his forehead, and his face looks sort of drawn, tight, but there is so much love there. She's missed that expression, seeing the full force of it, the neediness so visible in his eyes.

_Lord, I'm not satisfied. Lord, I'm not satisfied._

It reminds her of the way they wrote this song—some strange psychic link between them as they sat mere inches from one another in that tiny little cupboard of a room, staring fixedly into each other's eyes and almost trying to guess what words were going to come out of their mouths next. The lyrics just came, as if from nowhere. Last week that day would have seemed like a lifetime ago; now, it could have been yesterday.

_It's been a long time coming. It's been a long time coming. I'm gonna stab your kissy, kissy heart. It's been a long time coming._

Alison weaves closer, heart pounding so loud it becomes a part of the music, a second drum beat. She can't take her eyes off him. They're singing to each other as though it's the very first time and Alison loses track of literally everything else. It's her and Jamie in that little room again, just the two of them, electricity and magic.

_Great God Almighty, been keeping on your good side. Great God Almighty, been tryin' to get along._

Alison's hands are sweaty on her guitar, her fingers moving almost of their own accord by now. Everything is easy, thoughtless, perfect. When Jamie jerks at her, jutting his chin, she throws herself back. Completely in sync. He's so close to her now that she can almost feel the sheen of sweat on his arms, the goosebumps even in this heat, the way his hairs are standing up on end.

_I want hellfire. I must do you wrong._

It sounds sweet, like a promise.

She doesn't want the song to end. It already feels as though they've played it for twice its length, and it's winding down like clockwork. The drum machine ticks off and Jamie takes his guitar firmly in his hands and suddenly shoves it up against hers, the strings shrieking against each other in protest. Alison shudders, breath catching in her throat, every muscle going tense. He's so fucking close to her, she can almost taste him, and the shrill noise is thrilling through every vein, lighting her blood on fire. Jamie's eyes are dark and intense as he jolts back suddenly, and he doesn't stop looking at her, even as he makes his way across the stage to start up the next song. Alison goes limp, almost drops to the floor and has to heave herself back to her mic stand. They're not even halfway through the show.

The rest is blissful torture. Alison can't remember the last time they were this good, but she still aches, and this time it's different—that kiss has ignited something in her and all she wants is more. The look in Jamie's eyes tells her he feels _exactly_ the same and she can hardly stand it. They can't even manage an encore properly, running each song into the next instead—afraid that if they stop they'll lose this, whatever it is.

Finally, the last song ends and they join hands and bow, looking at the audience properly for the first time. The size of it doesn't even overwhelm Alison, her mind clouded, she just stares blankly into the far reaches of the room and almost slurs her thanks. Then they're out, backstage in seconds. Alison is a few steps behind and Jamie doesn't turn to look at her. They take the towels they're offered, murmur thanks and wipe themselves off perfunctorily, sip at some water. Just as Alison takes the first step towards the door, Jamie does the same.

They walk side-by-side up to their hotel room in dead silence. The walk is brusque, purposeful, their strides quick and measured. They don't look at each other even once, as they head through each door, down each corridor, and stand in the elevator with a chattering couple. Alison almost feels sick, that same anxiety she gets before she goes onstage, her heart in her throat and every nerve tingling. She clenches her fists by her sides as she watches Jamie fumble with the keycard to their room, almost dropping it from his sweaty, shaking hands. They both know what's going to happen.

The door shuts behind them and there is a second's breath—the room is so quiet that all Alison can hear is the blood pounding in her ears—and then they fall together.

There is little relief in the kiss. It's frightening. Alison can barely even bring herself to think about it—it's too huge, too much to comprehend. All she knows is that this needs to happen, and if they slow down, take a step back, it might never. So everything is instinctive, physical, _fast_. They are greedy—within seconds, kissing is not enough and they're tearing at one another's clothes, Alison so violent with Jamie's shirt that two buttons come right off, clinking onto the wooden floor.

Jamie can hardly bear to stop kissing her for the few seconds she needs to pull her t-shirt up over her head. They clumsily remove their own shoes and socks, peel off jeans and underwear in one motion, and then are back in one another's arms, desperate to feel skin against skin. Jamie almost whimpers against Alison's lips as he unhooks her bra, fingers trembling against the bare skin of her back. She reaches down between his legs without letting herself think about it, remembering suddenly the mental block that Jack spoke of and forcing herself to go purely on impulse. He is hard and she buries her face in his shoulder, her cheeks hot, her teeth gently nipping at the skin of his neck.

They find their way to one of the beds without letting each other go, fall onto it, and Jamie's hand slips down to the juncture of her thighs, strong and sure now, stroking. She falls back, shameless, her legs bent in on themselves and spread. He is so sure of himself—she knows his actions are instinctive too but there's something else there, the idea that he doesn't need to be tentative because he _knows_ her. He knows her body so intimately that it makes no difference that he's never touched it this way before; he knows just how. She can feel her toes curling against the small of her back and she squeezes her eyes shut, clutching at the pillow under her head. She can sense him shifting on the bed before her, easing his way closer, and all of a sudden the comfort swings too far and it feels familiar, _too_ familiar, and she feels a wash of panic.

She opens her eyes and they look at each other—really, properly, for the first time since they were onstage. Jamie is on his knees, nestled between her thighs, one hand resting on her hipbone. She is spread out before him on her back, outstretched. They have seen each other this way many times before, but now there are no barriers, there is nothing between them, they are utterly naked. It's a bold reminder of all the times they've done this, all the times they've pretended it meant nothing. Now they see it for what it really is, and it's too much.

Alison moves to sit up, almost making to leave him in her sudden panic, but Jamie lets out a sort of whine, needy, clutching at her, reminding her that _no_ , they need this. She looks into his eyes and falls back into his arms instantly, making little impatient noises, hitching her legs over his. He lifts her up, eases her down onto his lap, and her mouth opens in a silent cry as he sinks into her in one swift motion. She throws back her head. His teeth are at her throat, his large hands holding her steady at her waist. 

Alison swings forward, wraps her arms tight around his neck and buries her face in his shoulder, feeling the heat of him, smelling his sweat, heaving herself up and down in his lap immediately, frantic and almost animalistic. He rocks with her in tandem, she moves to the rhythm of his heavy breath in her ear. It feels like having sex for the very first time, or it doesn't even feel like sex at all—it's nothing and everything all at once, so new and yet so familiar. She can't think about it, but even so her mind is quietly working away, reminding her how comforting the smell of him is, how many times she's hugged him and nestled into this place before, the warm nook between neck and shoulder. She pulls back abruptly, one hand cupping his face, and looking at him almost makes her want to cry. 

"Jamie," she whispers weakly, eyes stinging, and he kisses her fiercely, tangling his fingers in her matted hair. 

She finds the strength to lean herself back, holding tightly to his hips and trying to go slow, to look him in the eyes, but it feels like an overload. It doesn't last long—they can't let it. In a second everything is too intense, a rapid spike of sensations that has her clinging to him and him whimpering her name, and they go rigid against one another, holding on. A spasm and release, a deep gutteral moan, and Jamie is shaking so violently against her that she almost slips from his weak grip. Her eyes are wet and all she can do is kiss him, beginning to tremble too, mouth opening in a broken cry.

They cling to one another for so long that Alison loses track of time. As long as they stay this way, they're safe, nothing changes. Alison feels like she'll fall if she lets go, into something dark and unknown that will swallow her up. If she has Jamie, she'll be okay. She keeps repeating it to herself like a mantra, feeling the beat of his heart against her own skin. 

He's been inside her now. She can hardly process it. They've broken a fundamental rule, one that was never even consciously set. She mouthes at a tendon in his neck, tries to make herself believe it, accept it—but it hardly seems real, even now, even with his wetness between her legs and a gentle ache deep inside, their bodies sticking together with sweat, naked and open.

After a long, long time, Alison starts to feel less wired, like she's coming down. "I'm tired," she murmurs, voice muffled against Jamie's shoulder.

"Uh huh," is Jamie's response, and his voice sounds weak and a little scared.

They lie down, side-by-side in the single bed, staring at the ceiling instead of each other, as though if their eyes meet they will set it all off again. Alison's body is exhausted but her mind still feels wide awake, trying to make sense of it all, opening up the countless boxes she's locked things in over the years. She can't imagine sleeping; the idea of waking up in the morning like this and having to face it all is terrifying—but she's more worn-out than she knows, and before long she's drifting in a dreamless sleep. They cling to each another even then.

She's woken by harsh morning light—they never closed the curtains. She glances at Jamie beside her and it comes flooding back, making her heart pound. He looks so peaceful, curled in towards her. She settles back, breathing deeply, trying to calm herself down.

Perhaps it should feel exciting—she could be looking forward to more, anticipating the opportunity to explore all the things they've deprived themselves of. But she's too afraid; it feels like every further step is a risk and there's no right direction to take. They have allowed themselves this, but Alison doesn't believe that it's some miracle cure, that everything will be all right from this moment on. Now they will only want more and more, and it's going to take a long time to come to terms with it.

She didn't consider it last night, but all this time, Jamie must have been slowly and quietly reaching the same conclusion she had forced upon her by Jack. Determined to fight against it at first, but gradually reaching acceptance and understanding—or perhaps just giving in out of sheer exhaustion, the effort of lying for so long. She looks at him beside her, chewing on her bottom lip and studying his face, that face she knows so well, and she wonders if she'll ever know what's going on inside his head the way she used to. She wonders what's going to change, what further struggles they'll have to face now. Whether they'll manage them.

Jamie's eyelids flutter and then he looks back at her, blinking blearily. They look at one another for a long time, silent and still, as though quietly accepting their fate. Alison attempts a tentative smile, barely there. Jamie does not return it.

He checks his watch. "I get the shower first," he says, "I'm meeting Kate at eleven."

Maybe the words should make Alison's heart sink, but instead they send a feeling of relief right through her. Normality. It's promising, she's sure. "I'll race you for it," she says sleepily.

Jamie chuckles, flicking her on the nose. "All right," he says, shaking his head at her in amusement as she makes no move to get out of bed.

He heads into the bathroom, leaving the door open, and she rolls over, propping herself up on her elbow as she watches him pad about in there. "Forgot my razor, I'm using yours," he calls after a moment. 

His voice might sound a little strained, but she could just as well be imagining it, so she just shakes her head and flops back down on the pillows. "Dirty thief," she mumbles, and in response she hears him laugh, a sudden burst, open and honest.

Only time will tell, but this morning, at least, the world does not end.


End file.
